In a new op-ed in USA Today, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter once again emphasized that the US retains the option to attack Iran militarily irrespective of reaching a nuclear deal with them, saying the “military option is real today” and that he will make sure it remains open into the future.

Carter went on to say he was recently in the Middle East and assured the troops there that they remain “full speed ahead” against Iran, and that the US will retain the ability to “quickly surge overwhelming additional force” into the region to fight Iran.

While a number of administration officials have hyped the “military option” since the P5+1 nuclear deal was reached with Iran, none has done so more often than Carter, who on the day the deal was announced declared that the US might still attack Iran at any moment no matter what they agreed to .

A lot of these threats to attack Iran are seen as an effort to placate hawks, both in Congress and in Israel, who have opposed the deal in no small part because of the perception that it might get in the way of a war with Iran. Even today’s op-ed saw Carter talking up the war while defending the deal, suggesting this remains a very awkward attempt to cushion the blow that the pact represents to the pro-war crowd.

Well, of course. And faithful old "Ash" (how appropriate a name) will be safely ensconced in his suite of offices back at the Pentagon when those nasty old "cheating" Iranians respond to the US "preventive" aggression.

Go ahead, O psychopathic leaders of the United States of Israel, attack Iran, so in the aftermath, we can watch Russia nuke Israel off the face of the earth. Attack Iran (a war crime, btw) and the beaches of Tel Aviv will be turned into green glass, GUARANTEED. Go ahead, fools, DO IT! A real Holocaust shall be yours for the asking. Half an hour after Israel, or its brainless golem slave, the USSA, attacks Iran, Israel and its people shall no longer exist. Don’t believe me or the Russian Joint Chiefs of Staff? Go ahead and just do it, suckahz.

Most of those who oppose Israel claim (and I tend to believe their claims) that they oppose Israel on behalf of the land claims of displaced Palestinian Arabs who (or whose ancestors) once lived there.

You just come right out and make it clear you don't give a rat's ass about the Palestinian Arabs — screw'em if they get in between you and the prospect of a giant pile of dead Jews.

If Israel does use nuclear weapons against Iran, as so often discussed by its partisans, something like this could happen. It is far from automatic, but letting that genie out of the bottle will have unpredictable and deadly consequences.

This is just neotard saber rattling whose words are music to the ears of Israel and their sponsors. Iran, Syria and Russia have a mutual defense treaty. An attack on one is an attack on all. Ashole Carter is talking out of his anal pore. Just another well paid DC idiot wind lip flapper reading the script presented to him by his handlers …http://www.examiner.com/article/the-russia-iran-s…

Ash Carter's statements are another verification that the US military is an independent branch of the government, beholden to no one.
Why isn't Obama rebuking him? Why can't the president of the United States take him aside and tell him to shut up?

Good question. Carter's position is an appointed one and the question that begs to be asked, is why the Obama regime is pushing the Iranian deal so hard?… Carter could not be saying these things unless this is with the approval of 'O' because, otherwise, he'd get his butt fired. There's an ulterior motive (or maybe more than one) with this Iranian deal. (If it is being done by the US, it usually means something very bad is coming.) I want a fair deal for Iran, the US is not fair about anything and we have a track record that proves it.

Right. Fairness is essential. In a system of sovereign nations, a nation keeps to an agreement only because it sees that as its own best interest.

If it sees the agreement as unfair, but feels forced into it to avoid worse, then it will be waiting its chance to break that agreement. See Versailles and all the trouble that came from domestic factions able to capitalize on the perception of unfairness.

Fairness is essential to long term stability. Unfairness undermines the agreement, and the benefit it sought.

The Pentagon needs 10 million dollars to establish a committee to decide whether it should wipe its ass or a hole in the ground every time it takes a crap– and the rest of the world knows it. Or as one of Humphrey Bogart's characters once said, "The cheaper the punk, the gaudier the talk."

Apparently this warmongering imbecile we currently have as our Secretary of "Defense" cares nothing about our Government's legal duties under the UN Charter and the Nuremburg Principles to refrain from aggressive (non-defensive) war against any other sovereign nation. If our current President were not similarly inclined, obviously he would fire this would-be war criminal immediately. So much for the "Rule of Law" in our sorry excuse for a Democracy.

The neocon crowd should get their story together. They spend endless column inches decrying the Munich Agreement, "peace in our time" as a piece of paper. Ash waves some "attack plan" around like its merely a matter of working through the Power Point sides to the garden of Eden solution.

Napoleon and Hitler executed their "options" and it didn't work for either of them. Both Napoleon and Hitler actually had armies that had a realistic chance of achieving a victory. The US military, expensive as it is, is in no way capable of subduing either Iran or Russia. The US army simply isn't large enough to deal with the geography and population of either country.
Ash has plans to start many wars but no idea how to finish any of them. As Germany discovered, if the job turns out to be more difficult than the "option", you can't always just go back to the start line and let bygones be bygones. Unpredictability of warfare is a proven historical fact that Ash and friends just can't seem to understand. Iran, Russia etc. have "options" too.